Lee Anne Washington discovered discrepancies in statements made by leading officals at VMRC in Robert Hollowell's lawsuit against VMRC concerning crab dredging. Ms. Washington asked The Honorable Harvey B. Morgan, chairman of House Agriculture Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee, to investigate VMRC’s handling of the crab dredging issue – including an investigation of the roles of Commissioner Bowman, Deputy Commissioner Travelstead, and Public Relations Director Bull.
Although the waterman's association was not involved in the lawsuit it must be noted that the association was supportive of Mr. Hollowell and Ms. Washington in that suit and are supportive of Ms. Washington in her quest for an investigation.
Below is that letter to Delegate Morgan.
By the way Ms. Washington successfully represented Mr. Hollowell. VMRC did not have the authority to permanately close (eliminate) in winter crab dredging fishery and must address the crab dredging fishery annually as it does other fisheries.
Ms. Washington is correct in her letter when she states that VMRC has lost the confidence of Virginia's commercial waterman.
AGAIN THE WATERMEN STAND IN SUPPORT OF MS. WASHINGTON!

May 25, 2009

 

 

The Honorable Harvey B. Morgan, Chairman

House Agriculture Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee

P.O. Box 949
Gloucester, VA 23061

 

Re:       Virginia Marine Resources Commission (“VMRC”)

            Crab Dredging

 

Dear Delegate Morgan,

 

            The Virginia General Assembly has entrusted the VMRC with a sacred public trust:  the duty of preserving and protecting one of our Country‘s greatest natural resources – the Chesapeake Bay.  In so doing, the VMRC has been given the power to “promulgate regulations, including those for taking seafood, necessary to promote the general welfare of the seafood industry and to conserve and promote the seafood and marine resources of the Commonwealth.” (See Exhibit 1, Va. Code §  28.2-201.) 

 

            It is with great consternation that I bring to the attention of the House Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources Committee certain contradictory statements that the VMRC has made to the United States Department of Commerce, the Virginia General Assembly, the Circuit Court of Norfolk, and the general public.  Below, I provide recorded instances of diametrically opposed statements made by the VMRC concerning its intent with regard to crab dredging in Virginia.

 

            Put simply, the VMRC has lost the confidence of Virginia’s 2,900 commercial watermen, their families,  and their friends.  The VMRC cannot maintain the public’s confidence or effectively fulfill its mission if it continues to change its message from audience to audience and from desired result to desired result. 

 

            The following examples of statements made by the VMRC lead to one of two devastating conclusions:  Either the VMRC is incompetently run and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing or the VMRC has engaged in a concerted effort to mislead the aforementioned authorities. Neither conclusion is acceptable.

 

EXAMPLES

IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

OF VMRC’S CONTRDICTORY STATEMENTS

CONCERNING CRAB DREDGING IN VIRGINIA WATERS

 

I.  March 2008: Notice of Public Comment for April 22, 2008 VMRC Meeting

 

            In preparation for its April 22, 2008 meeting (the “Meeting”), the VMRC published the legally required notice (the Notice).  Paragraph 2 of the Notice states in pertinent part:  “Under the authority established by Section 28.2-707 of the Code of Virginia, the Commission will also consider proposals to shorten or eliminate the winter dredge fishery season. . .” (Emphasis added) (See Exhibit 2, Notice).

 

            The VMRC is constrained in what it can consider at any given meeting by the Notice.  At the Meeting, the VMRC had two choices – either shorten the winter dredge fishery season or “eliminate” it.

 

            Note Bene:  The VMRC is not precise in its use of the term “season.”  In some contexts it means December 1 through March 31 in any given year – i.e. the 2007 crab dredge season, the 2008 crab dredge season, etc.  In other contexts, such as in the Notice and the subsequent regulation, the term is used to denote a specific method, among several methods, of harvesting crabs during any given year – i.e., the crab pot season, the peeler pot season, the crab dredge season. 

 

           

II.  April 2008:  The VMRC Enacts the Eliminating Regulation

 

            At the Meeting I, and dozens of Virginia’s Commercial Watermen, requested that the VMRC table its consideration of “eliminating the winter crab dredge fishery season” until the next meeting to give us sufficient additional time to consider the legal ramifications of the proposed regulation and prepare a response.

 

            The VMRC denied our request and enacted Chapter 4VAC20-1140-10 et Seq., a regulation that did not in anyway “shorten” the winter dredge fishery season – it “eliminated” it.  That regulation is referred to hereafter as the “Eliminating Regulation”.

 

            The Eliminating Regulation makes the bold statement that it is “unlawful, for any person, to use a dredge, for catching crabs, from the waters of the Commonwealth” and repeals 18 regulations pertaining to crab dredging. (See Exhibit  3, Chapter 4VAC20-1140-10.)

 

May 2008:  Robert Hollowell Files an Appeal of the Eliminating Regulation

 

            Robert Hollowell, a commercial waterman who has earned a living by harvesting fish and shellfish from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries since 1965, has been harvesting crabs by dredging for them during the winter months for over 29 years.  He timely filed a petition for appeal to the Norfolk Circuit Court challenging the legality of the VMRC’s passage of the Eliminating Regulation.  The petition does not state the grounds of the appeal, only which regulation is being appealed. (See Exhibit 4, Notice of Appeal.)

 

 III.  June 13, 2008:  VMRC Letter to Department of Commerce

 

            In a letter dated June 13, 2008,  Steve Bowman -- the VMRC Commissioner  -- wrote to Harold C. Mears -- the Office Director for the State, Federal, and Constituent Program Office of the United States Department of Commerce -- to provide additional documentation in support of the Virginia and Maryland request for declaration of a blue crab fishery resource disaster.

 

            Consistent with the Notice and the Eliminating Regulation, Commissioner Bowman explains to Mr. Mears that “[t]wo main components of the Virginia plan to reduce the harvest of female crabs that are associated with lost income, to fishermen, are the establishment of an early season closure in 2008 and the elimination of the 100-year old winter dredge fishery.”  He further explains that “[i]n April the VMRC eliminated this long standing fishery.”  And finally,  Commissioner Bowman states that “It was very difficult for the Commission, in Virginia, to eliminate the crab dredge fishery.”  (Emphasis added.) (See Exhibit 5, June 13, 2008 Letter from Bowman to Mears).

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 23, 2008:  Hollowell Files His Petition for Appeal

           

            Robert Hollowell asserts in his petition for appeal that “[u]nder the statute [Va. Code §  28.2-707], the Commission has the authority to extend, limit, or close a season in its entirety, but not the authority to eliminate the crab dredging fishery altogether which  is the de facto result of the Eliminating Regulation.” (Exhibit 6, Petition for Appeal, p.9 of 13).

 

IV.  November 2008:  Annual Report to Governor and General Assembly  Regarding Blue Crab Fisheries Management Plan         

 

            With apparent knowledge of the mounting controversy concerning whether VMRC has the authority to “eliminate” the crab dredge fishery, Commissioner Bowman in his report to the Governor and General Assembly is careful to confine his report of the Commission’s action to the statutory limit of just one season.  In one section of the report, Commissioner Bowman reports that “ [t]he Commission Suspended the 2008/2009 winter dredge fishery season.”  In another section, he explains that “[t]he Commission has also planned, and will fund, a work program, designed to assist some of the 53 crab dredge fishermen who were impacted by the closure of the 2008/2009 winter crab dredge season.”

 

            Nowhere in the Report does Commissioner Bowman inform the Governor and the General Assembly that “[i]n April the VMRC eliminated this long standing fishery” or explain that “[t]wo main components of the Virginia plan to reduce the harvest of female crabs that are associated with lost income, to fishermen, are the establishment of an early season closure in 2008 and the elimination of the 100-year old winter dredge fishery” or express the sentiment that “[i]t was very difficult for the Commission, in Virginia, to eliminate the crab dredge fishery”  -- as he had previously done in his letter to the United States Department of Commerce.  Instead, he leaves it to the reader to ferret out this information from Attachment II. (See Exhibit 7, p. 27 of 79.)

 

           

IV.  December 2008:  Representations to Circuit Court of Norfolk

           

             Then, contrary to everything that the VMRC had publicly stated to that point, it repeatedly “[d]enies that the challenged regulation eliminates crab dredging in Virginia waters” in its Answer to Hollowell’s Petition for Appeal. (See Exhibit 8, VMRC Answer, numbered paragraphs 1, 2, 19, 21, 23, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41, 42, 54, 57, and 60.) 

           

 

 

V.  March 26, 2009:  Representations to  General Public

 

            Finally, in complete contradiction to the previously filed Answer, John Bull, Director of Public Relations for the VMRC, stated in an interview on March 26, 2009 with the Northern Neck News -- a local weekly newspaper which services the five counties of the Northern Neck -- that the $10 million dollars in federal funds appropriated for crab fisheries disaster relief was “a ‘bridge program’ to help crab dredgers get through a few years until they can find another way to make a living in the winter months. ‘We don’t expect to reinstate the crab dredging season.’” (Emphasis added.) (See Exhibit 9.)

 

           

 

VI.  April 2009:  Court Sets Aside Criminal Provisions of Regulation and Requires Revision of Regulation to Pertain only to December 1, 2008 – March 31, 2009 Crab Dredging Season. (See Exhibit 10.)

 

 

______________________

                                   

             

The examples presented here beg the following questions, among others: 

 

1)      If the VMRC does not plan to “reinstate” the crab dredging season, how does that differ from “eliminating” it?

2)      Has the VMRC committed a fraud against the United States Department of Commerce or the Norfolk Circuit Court?

3)       Is the VMRC so bereft of integrity that it cannot admit when it has overstepped its authority –choosing to obfuscate the truth, instead?

 

            As the Secretary and General Counsel of the Virginia State Waterman’s Association, I respectfully request a thorough investigation of the VMRC’s handling of the crab dredging issue – including an investigation of the roles of Commissioner Bowman, Deputy Commissioner Travelstead, and Public Relations Director Bull in:

 

1)      making representations to the United States Department of Commerce;

2)      making representations to the Norfolk Circuit Court; and

3)      making representations to the general public.

 

            Finally, I note that it has been 35 years since a JLARC study has been done on the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and it’s about time for another one. 

            Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.  If you have any questions or I can be of any assistance to you or your committee, please feel free to contact me – I’ll be glad to do what I can.

 

                                                                        Sincerely,

 

 

                                                                        Lee Anne Washington

                                                                        Secretary & General Counsel

                                                                        Virginia State Waterman’s Association

        

        

        

        

<< MORE >>

Times are changing for Virginia's Watermen. .

Crab Disaster Plan

It is no fault of the waterman that in 2008 the crab fishery was declared a disaster.

Lost of aquatic grasses, lost of our oyster reefs, predation, and pollution from both point and non-point sources are what have caused the waterman to be the scapegoat.

As much as I would like to see Virginia's watermen continue in the traditional fishing methods that they grew up with it is inevitable that the waterman has got to adjust if he plans to survive.

Although I do not agree with everything in the plan I do see where it allows new opportunities. I especially see this for the younger waterman who knows what hard work is and is willing to take that dedicated work ethic to the next level.

As for us older watermen, we are a dying breed. As we leave so does a cultural resource along with years of applied knowledge and experience.

Not only is it important to encourage the younger ones but we still have to work to help bring this BAY back. People need to hear our stories of how clean the water was when we grew up. Politicians and VMRC must be held accountable.

We all are seeing the oyster trying to make a come back. There is strike everywhere but on the bottom. We need to get these oyster bars worked. Bring the shells back up to the top and you need to call your delegate, senator, and congressman and tell them.

When we grew up you didn't have to go to a man-made reef to catch a fish All you had to do was go to the edge of any oyster bar.

The Virginia State Waterman's Association is going to continue its fight to preserve a heritage and our resource but we are also going to move forward. By doing so hopefully we can help watermen move into new fisheries, find better marketing, and continue to run a family businesses that a father can pass to his son.

        

PORTSMOUTH

Ferry riders this week saw firsthand the unpleasant summer phenomenon known as a "crab jubilee."

At the two ferry landings on the Portsmouth waterfront, blue crabs were fleeing from an oxygen-starved Elizabeth River, clinging to pilings and below docks in search of life-sustaining oxygen.

Floating next to them were the not-so-lucky - dead fish, dozens of them, including adult striped bass, baby flounders, croakers and white perch.

Officials at the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said Friday they have been flooded with calls in recent days about fish kills and scurrying crabs in local waters.

The events seem to be concentrated in Portsmouth and Norfolk, in the shallow and enclosed reaches of the Elizabeth River and lower James River, said Wick Harlan, a state environmental specialist monitoring the trend.

Harlan said the culprit seems to be an old one - algae blooms, which are dying off and gobbling up oxygen as they sink to the bottom of affected waterways.

The blooms have been occurring for decades in much of the Chesapeake Bay during late summer, the result of nutrient pollution and high water temperatures. During rains, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus wash into waterways from city streets, storm drains, development sites, lawns and gardens, parking lots and farm fields.

In proper amounts, nutrients are good for an ecosystem. But when they overwhelm a water body, as they do now throughout the Bay system, algae grows quickly and can cause "dead zones" lacking in oxygen.

Algae blooms last summer were some of the heaviest and most widespread on record in Hampton Roads, but few fish kills were reported. This year, by contrast, the blooms have not been as extensive but are resulting in more kills and more crab jubilees, Harlan said.

State officials found "extremely low" oxygen levels at the High Street ferry landing in Portsmouth on Thursday, Harlan said, following calls from concerned business owners and downtown residents who live near the port.

Betsy Cartier, who runs the Starboards coffee kiosk next to the landing, said she has never seen conditions so bad in her five years on the water.

It started Thursday morning, she said, when scores of sea gulls were picking at dead fish. By Friday afternoon, the smell was "just horrendous," Cartier said.

"Everybody comes off the ferry and wants to know what's going on," she said.

She said she talked to boaters on Friday coming up the Intracoastal Waterway who told her of seeing thousands of dead fish and even snakes on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River.

Knitting Mill Creek in Norfolk, near Old Dominion University and the Colley Avenue business corridor, experienced some of the most intensive fish kills this week related to scant oxygen, officials said.

Investigators documented "very high counts" in the creek of a particular kind of algae causing most of the trouble, a species known as Cochlodinium, Harlan said.

The cells of this species can become so large that they might clog fish gills, exacerbating the effects of poor water quality and little oxygen, experts explained.

Cochlodinium arrived in Virginia in 1992 and has been showing up in late July and August ever since, sometimes with gusto and sometimes hardly at all.

Harlan chuckled when asked how long the conditions will continue this summer.

"It's very unpredictable," he said, "and depends a lot on the weather and winds."

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

        

NEWS FOR RELEASE: On Receipt [August 15, 2008]

Non-Partisan, Public-Private Task Force

STATE SEN. RICHARD STUART IS FORMING GROUP TO RESTORE CHESAPEAKE BAY

State Sen. Richard H. Stuart (R., 28th District) is launching a public-private Virginia task force of various local, state and federal officials, environmental and conservation groups and interested individuals for an all-out attack on Chesapeake Bay pollution aimed at restoring the estuary’s health.

Named the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Task Force, Stuart announced the effort on Thursday (Aug. 14) at an organizational meeting of the new Virginia State Waterman’s Association at the Virginia Watermen’s Museum in Yorktown.

His objective, Stuart said, is to hold educational workshops in the Bay region and to develop legislation and other approaches to fix the Bay’s problems. He said he hopes to expand the effort with similar task forces elsewhere in the Bay watershed, especially in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

“This is absolutely a non-partisan group,” Stuart said. “We are not seeking individuals with political agendas. The only agenda members of this task force will have is to fix the Chesapeake Bay.”

Stuart grew up in Westmoreland County and as a youth worked as a waterman on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

“The condition into which we have let the Bay and its tributaries lapse is nothing less than criminal,” he said. “Having grown up on the water and crabbed and fished all my life, I’m afraid now to let my children swim in the Potomac River. This precious watershed must be restored.”

As the task force’s organizer, Stuart already has brought on board Congressman Rob Wittman (R., 1st District); State Sens. Ralph Northam (D., 6th District) and Ryan T. McDougle (R., 4th District), members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources; House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell (R., 28th District); Del. Albert C. Pollard, Jr. (D, 99th District); Del. Harvey B. Morgan (R., 98th District), chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources; and R. Michael McKenney (D), a member of the Virginia State Water Control Board and Northumberland County commonwealth’s attorney.

Stuart said he also will seek to enlist the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Virginia Farm Bureau, The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, The League of Conservation Voters, The Virginia State Waterman’s Association, and others who exhibit a clear dedication to restoring the Bay.

Volunteers are being sought, Stuart said, to work with the task force in organizing and carrying out the regional educational workshops.

● ● ●

        

By Liza Field

08/14/2008

,"The underground water table gets its supply from only one source: the moisture which falls on the surface of the land." — Jay N. Darling

Got rain?

Paying $4 per gallon for milk and gas drew our attention this year. It seemed to create a funnel for the reality finally to sink into our awareness — that resources on a finite earth are limited.

It also diverted our attention from a more submerged shortage — of water. This is regrettable, since water is one resource we could renew, if we tried. And though we don't stand gazing at its price each week at "the pump," water is far more valuable than fossil fuel.

We valued it here in the mid-Atlantic, last summer, as water supplies began to look finite. Their finitude constituted a relatively new idea for eastern states, historically sodden with rain, groundwater, springs, creeks and full rivers. Water shortages had always been the problem of people "out west," appallingly draining their ancient aquifer and arguing over rivers.

So for decades, while western states lived under strict rules for surface and groundwater use, governments in the east continued handing out water-withdrawal permits to any industry that asked. Meanwhile, we continued to develop, pave and grow — our only limits appearing to be the horizontal landscape, not the vertical situation beneath our feet.

In recent years, smartgrowth advocates have warned that mid-Atlantic water shortages would result from unchecked development, a drier climate, the revamped logging siege in our Eastern mountains, and the rapid transition of woods and farms into developed sprawl.

Officials in Maryland and Pennsylvania helped lead the way in legislating standards for sending pollution-laden urban storm-water into detention ponds, rather than shunting it down gutters, creeks and rivers, into the Chesapeake Bay. But often, the slowed down, somewhat cleaner water ultimately gets sent downstream rather than into the ground.

This brings up a vital point. Expecting government single-handedly to restore the water table is as unproductive as expecting it to solve the energy crisis. Ordinary citizens are the ones who must create a "water reserve" for the future.

How? After all, average residents can no more hoard rain than we can stockpile gasoline down in the root-cellar. — Or can't we?

Luckily, nature has been storing rain underground for eons. That's why the American settlers found abundant springs, creeks and groundwater sitting just a few feet below the surface for their spade-dug wells. Across the continent, in those days, orchards, crops and wildlife could survive long periods without rain. Plant roots could reach the groundwater, and wildlife could find abundant creeks and springs. Why?

When rain falls into meadow grasses, woods or humus-buried mountainsides, it gets absorbed by what permaculturists call "a sponge." Tall weeds, fallen logs, leaf-litter, pine-straw, rotting apples, nut-shells, sticks, moss and lichens — all the "mess" we've been taught to rake off the land's surface — help slow down any rain run-off, meanwhile absorbing it for slow release into the ground.

So while one's neat-mown, sun-beaten lawn may be parched dry as a wicker-basket on summer afternoons, a nearby woodland walk can reveal a shaded landscape still moist, under the leaf-mat, from rain three weeks prior.

This is one reason smart growth advocates link increased land development to future water shortages. Besides more residential demand for water, the rain-repellent traits of developed landscapes keep groundwater from being recharged.

Curbing development seems essential to restoring our region's groundwater. But what about the vast spread of already-developed landscapes that we can't exactly undo?

Ordinary residents — once informed — can transform things. We may not be public officials or developers, but if we live somewhere, work, walk, go to school or vote somewhere — if we have any influence at all over a small patch of earth — we can help store up the priceless resource of rain.

Permeable paving blocks, rain arrels and gray water lines are great investments for "groundwater-banking." But at almost no cost, homeowners, landlords, schools, churches, hospitals and businesses can transform their landscape from high-maintenance lawn (which can shunt off stormwater like a thatched roof) to a landscape of water-catching mulch, compost, gardens, shrubs, ferns, wildflowers and shade-trees.

Such a landscape not only absorbs rain, it can help retard the immediate evaporation of water from the ground.

A rain-absorbing, less mower-dependent landscape also cuts emissions — as well as costs at that ever-interesting gas pump. And who knows? If saving gallons of rainwater can also save a few gallons of gas, groundwater banking ideas might begin to percolate more deeply into our awareness, the local neighborhood, the region and perhaps the entire, thirsty continent.

Liza Field is a hiker and conservationist. She teaches English and philosophy in the Virginia Governor's School and Wytheville community College. Distributed by Bay Journal News Service.

        

Putting watermen out of business

August 1, 2008

Loss of the crab-dredge fishery was a hard blow, with five months of no work; also with rumors of the VMRC taking away my crab pot and peeler licenses, and now restricting charter boat licenses, this is adding more insult to injury. Our careers are facing annihilation.

So I beg the VMRC to stop this madness. The condition of the bay is not our fault. Start looking elsewhere before pointing the finger at us.

Lee R. Smith

Hampton

        

Letters, faxes, and emails need to be sent ASAP!

Regulations on Commercial Waterman and NOT MAKING THE POLLUTERS live by their regulations. If there is ever going to be any justice then we have got to take a stand!

Virginia Must Not Roll Back Protection for the Chesapeake Bay!

Virginia’s rivers and the Chesapeake Bay are in critical condition. The Commonwealth just released its assessment of Virginia waterways (the “dirty waters list”) and found that over 10,600 miles of rivers and nearly the entire Chesapeake Bay do not meet state water quality requirements. This includes nearly 2,500 miles of the Shenandoah-Potomac River system—a basin whose fisheries and economy has recently been plagued by spring and summer fish kills—from its headwaters in the Shenandoah Valley to the lower tidal reaches of the Potomac.

Given the degraded state of these waterways, we are concerned that the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has proposed authorizing pollution discharges into the Shenandoah-Potomac in excess of the “pollution caps” already determined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be protective of water quality in the Bay downstream. Specifically, the proposal would allow Merck Pharmaceuticals and the Frederick-Winchester Service Authority to increase their pollution limits for nitrogen and phosphorus—the two main pollutants that have sickened the Bay—by an additional 42,000 pounds of nitrogen pollution and 7,000 pounds of phosphorus pollution per year.

DEQ’s plan to authorize this additional pollution, and then address the excesses above the pollution caps in a future Bay clean-up plan, is inappropriate and provides little relief for those that rely on the Shenandoah-Potomac and the Bay. The EPA and the Commonwealth have already established achievable, scientifically-based pollution caps based on unprecedented study of the Bay region. Virginia must hold the line on pollution caps now—not forgo protecting our water quality until some future date!

Take Action

Submit a public comment urging DEQ and the State Water Control Board to deny amendments to the Water Quality Management Planning Regulation that would authorize increased nitrogen and phosphorus pollution allocations to Merck and the Frederick-Winchester Service Authority. Please let these state officials know how important clean water is to you, your livelihood, and your quality of life. Additional details about this proposal can be found at the state’s web-site: http://www.townhall.state.va.us/L/viewstage.cfm?stageid=4461&display=general.

Comments can be submitted until July 25, 2008 to Mr. John Kennedy via

Mail:

Department of Environmental Quality

629 East Main Street

P.O. Box 1105

Richmond, VA 23218

E-mail:

jmkennedy@deq.virginia.gov

Fax:

(804) 698-4116